The iPhone 3GS is well on it’s way, and guess what? It’s the same price as the original iPhone 3G!* Even better, the iPhone 3G was knocked down to $99!!

Oh, you did see the asterisk? Hmm.. damn, I was hoping you would just take it as a typo. Alright! Fine! If you insist, here it is: *If you’re a new AT&T customer…

Hmmm… okay, so I thought about checking that out for myself, and indeed. If I go to the AT&T website and look at my upgrade options for the 3GS, I will have to pay full price ($299/399) since I am only a year into my two year contract. What. The. Fuck? To be honest, if it weren’t for my awesomely not family plan, I probably wouldn’t even own an iPhone. On top of the monthly service charge, AT&T also asks for $30/month for unlimited text messaging – even though the service plan includes “unlimited data”. The last time I checked, SMS was data.

I’m not about to say AT&T is the devil amongst cell phone carriers, after all, I did go from Verizon, to T-Mobile, to Cincinnati Bell, back to Verizon, before finally landing on AT&T. They all legitimately suck. These companies are basically the RIAA of the cellular industry with more contracts and legal jargon to give anyone a headache, but honestly? AT&T, you’re dealing with a whole new breed of customer: Apple Fanboys.

Apple fanboys do not want anyone getting in between them and their Lord-provided technological devices that even Zeus himself would feel comfortable using – and that is exactly what AT&T is doing. AT&T is alienating a customer base that they must have bid through the nose with Apple to have full access to. Why? Why throw all that away? As if all the users jailbreaking their phones wasn’t enough. As soon as customers have warranty-preserving rights to leave AT&T for their own preferred cellular providers, I’m pretty sure AT&T is going to see a sudden drop in renewed contracts.

Of course, we could also be witnessing a last ditch effort to suck dollars from consumers as they renew / pay-up the cancellation on their AT&T contracts; then as soon as the iPhone 3G/S becomes portable service plans from AT&T will drop to remain competitive. We’ll see, but I hope Apple doesn’t let AT&T keep their monopoly on the iPhone (which we should find out within the next few months or so). All I know is I’ve got plenty of good reasons not to upgrade, and by plenty, I mean it’s gonna cost me plenty of money.